I'm the Hero Of This Story I Don't Need Saving, Right?
by KateM14
Summary: With such a large group of natural protectors as family and friends what could go wrong? This is Mason Stark's story.
1. Chapter 1

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of these characters except Mason Stark and her friends. **

**This is my first Iron Man: Tony Stark/Pepper Potts FF but I love reviews and follows! This is just the beginning. It gets better, I swear. Hope you enjoy. xx Kat**

Mason Grace Stark was not your average child. Her parents weren't average parents either. Tony Stark was hardly a normal person and he and his wife made an uncommon match. Pepper Stark (nee Potts) may have been the only normal person in the small family.

Mason Stark had been a special gift. Every parent has called his or her child "special" but that was what she truly was to Tony and Pepper. She got it from her parents. Combined, the couple was a power machine that meshed surprisingly well together: Pepper doing most of the work while Tony gave her compliments, headaches, and did most of the heavy lifting. Their daughter was intelligent in all the ways they were but with an added bonus of being musically gifted.

The talent was discovered at an early age. Tony would sit Mason in his lab and he would play the songs from his youth: AC/DC, Black Sabbath, etc. She was drumming along at the age of 5, playing the guitar by 7 and taught herself the piano at 10. Music was her passion and her parents were thrilled that she found something she loved so much, so early in life.

Mason's talent's spanned beyond music though. She was plain, old intelligent, a genius the experts would say. She understood the mechanics of her father's lab at an early age and graduated high school at 13, completed her undergraduate at Julliard (Music composition and production/Business Major) at 16 and at 17 she was working with an independent record label while slowly taking on responsibilities at Stark Industries. She knew that one day she would need to understand the family business but was like her father in the fact that she wanted to do what she loved for a living.

Her parents were extremely proud. They knew their daughter was gifted from the beginning but the way she shaped herself was impeccable. She was more like her mother in the way she dressed and held herself: confident, grounded and elegant but more like her father in the knowledge department. Some days her knowledge was her downfall, just like her father's. It was their logical thinking ability that made them superior to the rest of the world, or so they were thought.

Tony was sure he was going to mess Mason up from day one but Pepper always reassured him that nobody was messing anyone up. They were in the business of raising their daughter together and they would make mistakes together but it was all a learning experience. Like the time Tony let her near Clint's bow and arrows or the time she had nightmares for a week because he let her watch Saw with him while Pepper was out of town. But Pepper wasn't a model parent either: like the time she lost Mason for 10 minutes at the American Girl store in Chicago or when she left Mason at the house because she had been late for work and forgot that she needed to drop her off with her Uncle Steve. Both were great parents who sometimes slipped up.

Growing up, Mason was surrounded by adults. Her mother and father had been only children and her mother's parents had lived in Minnesota, far away from both New York and Malibu. Her father's parent's died in a plane crash when he was 17 and they were a step-by-step instruction manual on exactly what type of people not to grow into.

Her family consisted of her parents and family friends: Natasha and Clint had a child a few years before Mason was born, named Dex. Her Uncle Thor had married Jane Foster a couple years after New York and they split their time between Asgard and New Mexico, having children of their own: Bowden, Kenley and Talon. And her uncles, Steve and Bruce, had remained happily single. Bruce was always in a different country, so he never had the time for a serious relationship and Steve found that he hadn't discovered a connection between anyone in this century like he'd had with Peggy.

With such a large group of natural protectors as family and friends what could go wrong? This is Mason's story.


	2. Chapter 2

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of these characters except Mason Stark and her friends.**

**This is my first Iron Man: Tony Stark/Pepper Potts FF but I love reviews and follows! This is just the beginning. It gets better, I swear. Hope you enjoy. xx Kate**

Mason spent most of her days in New York attending classes or holing herself up on the twenty-second floor of Stark Tower in her personal music studio. Her parents were in New York maybe once a month, so she basically "lived on her own." She had the tenth floor redecorated for her birthday last year when she and her mother decided that if she was old enough to graduate college, she was old enough to have her own floor in the tower.

If it weren't for Mason's boyfriend, Justin Williams, she would never have had a reason to leave her floor of the tower. She had everything she needed right there, except maybe an unlimited supply of food, which would cause problems when she actually remembered to eat.

"I will be back next Sunday and we can have dinner with them on Monday evening. Does that work for you?" Mason mentioned to Justin as she finished packing up her bags to make a quick weeklong trip out to Malibu to visit with her parents and meet some new clients at the label.

"Yes. I will make sure that I have nothing planned for that evening," Justin promised as he sat on the edge of her bed.

Mason had met Justin Williams in a Starbuck's line a couple months prior and the rest was history really. He had asked her out to dinner, she accepted and they were happy months later. Justin was 22 and in his first semester of Graduate School at Columbia as well but took night classes and worked as on Wall Street during his days, meaning he was often times busy.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you. This really means a lot to me. We have been going out for a while now. I think my mother is going stir crazy wanting to meet you," she said.

"Anything for you. You've got to get going, you'll miss your flight," he told her as he closed the suitcase, lifted it from the bed and rolled it onto the elevator.

"It's a family plane. It can't leave without me."

"Get going. Have fun," Justin said, kissing her before she got in the already waiting car.

~~~~~ Malibu ~~~~~

"I'm home," Mason yelled through the house, hoping someone was actually in the house.

Nobody answered. She guessed her mother was at the office and her father had been immersed in something in his lab. She dropped her bags off in her room and went hunting. She found her dad in the exact spot she thought he would be. She typed in the code and gave her handprint to JARVIS then walked in.

"Hi," she said, hoping to startle him. It would be a good wake up call to not let his daughter show up without a greeting.

"Ow," her dad said loudly, Mason guessed he probably hit his head. He slid out from underneath the machine he was working on to notice his daughter had already made herself comfortable on his desk. "Mason Grace, how nice to see you. I forgot you like to announce your presence." He walked over to give her a hug and kissed her forehead.

"Just like you don't like to be handed things, I don't like not being greeted after a long flight," Mason joked and smiled her sweet smile. "Where's mom?"

"You just have to many expectations, you little pain in the ass. She had to go into the office. She'll be back in time for dinner though," he told her as he went back to his machine.

"I'm going to go settle in," Mason said as she left the lab, her father calling out a distracted 'see ya.'

Mason didn't even notice her mother standing in her bedroom doorway three hours later. She had taken a nap after unpacking and her mother took the opportunity to stand in the doorway and watch. It was a rare occasion that Pepper saw her daughter's completely pure and innocent face while sleeping. As her daughter got older, those chances sort of faded away and Pepper was going to hold on as long as she could.

Mason was still a baby in her eyes and she probably would be no matter how old she got. She still called her father "daddy" and enjoyed the days of cuddling in bed with her mother watching bad reality television and flickering in and out of consciousness. Tony and Pepper figured as long as she still stayed at the house in Malibu and kept living at Stark Tower, there would be no need for a change and they were both okay with that. Mason was only 17-years old, smarter than most kids her age and wise beyond her years, but still need guidance navigating the real world and as her parents, Tony and Pepper were more than happy to assist their daughter.

Pepper moved towards her daughter and gently shook her shoulder and muttered a soft, "Masie Gracie wake up." Pepper knew that a whisper wouldn't wake her daughter but she couldn't bring herself to be too rough right off the bat. "Mason Grace, time to get up," Pepper said louder and shook her should harder. That seemed to do the trick.

"Five more minutes, Mom," Mason mumbled sleepily through her fuzzy mind.

"If you don't get up now you will never sleep tonight and besides I picked up your favorite take-out and it's waiting patiently on the kitchen table."

That definitely did the trick as Mason rolled out of bed kissed her mothers cheek and all but sprinted towards the kitchen where her father was setting the food on the table

"You're finally awake, Sleeping Beauty," her father said as she sat in her seat at the table.

"At least I _can_ sleep," she jabbed her father in the stomach. "I've heard the stories."

"I almost died. A little bout of insomnia was to be expected," Tony defended himself as he looked at Mason.

Pepper was going to give him away and Tony knew it. "A little bout of insomnia?" That is what you call having one of your suits attack me in the middle of the night?"

"No way! Did that really happen, Daddy?" Mason questioned.

"Not one of my finer moments I must say, Masie."

Mason knew her father's past was a difficult topic for her parents to talk about: his partying days, the events of New York with the Avenger's and the aftermath. It was one of the reasons they spent as much time in Malibu as possible. However, after the house in Malibu was destroyed by The Mandarin and sunk to the bottom of the ocean floor, Mason questioned why they even rebuilt there.

All of this happened years before she was brought into their world but that didn't mean that Mason had no idea what had happened. She researched on the Internet and had JARVIS share files with her from those years. Some of the things Mason found scared her. She wasn't afraid of her father but more afraid for him. He was the most vulnerable in those years and her mother had said it took awhile to get him healthy and back in a good state of mind.

The arc reactor would be something that she would never get over. The technology her father had developed amazed her but it made her sad that without that small but overly invasive piece of technology, her father may have died in that Afghan cave. Mason had always been envious of his intelligence and glad that he was smart enough to get himself out of almost any situation but after many nights of fitful sleeping, worrying about her father in those earlier years, she figured out that all she could do was thank the heavens for that arc reactor because she was here and a fine example of what was waiting for Tony Stark in his future.

"You two are still coming back with me to New York next weekend, right?" Mason said as she grabbed some Chinese food.

"Yes. Your father and I will be on that plane with you if it kills us," Pepper told her daughter.

"Maybe not if it's a life-threatening situation. We try to avoid those these days, Masie."

"Funny, Daddy. I was thinking that we could sit down and have dinner on Monday night. I could invite Justin over and you two could meet him?" In Mason's mind it came out as more of a suggestion but she said it as a question. She was nervous about them meeting Justin or rather she was nervous for Justin to meet her father.

"That would be lovely. I can't wait. Do we want to go out to dinner?" Pepper started rattling all these thoughts out in excitement.

"Good. I get to meet this kid who takes up so much of my daughter's time. Why did it take so long?" Tony said

"Tony, be nice," Pepper scolded her husband and hit his arm.

"I wanted to see if it would last before he met the two of you. I don't go around just dating anyone."

"Well aren't we glad you didn't follow in your father's footsteps," Pepper smiled at her daughter.

"I didn't date all of those women," Tony said, trying to defend himself to his wife and daughter.

"And that makes it sound more acceptable," Pepper joked with her husband.

"To answer your question Mom, I was thinking we could stay in. I don't want this to be a big production. Just the four of us sharing a meal together will be perfectly fine," Mason said, hoping she would go for it.

"Mason, you know your father and I couldn't cook if it could save our lives," Pepper looked skeptically at her daughter. Truer words had never been spoken. While she was growing up, they had a chef come in most days and make their meals, a perk of having Tony Stark as a father and his money, but also because the few times Tony or Pepper did try to cook, the sprinklers went off in the house.

"We could order something and bring it back to the tower?" Tony made a delightfully useful suggestion.

"I'll call Todd and see if he can come in for the night and whip something up." Pepper always knew what to do and Mason hoped that one day she would be just like her mother in that respect.

"Great plan, dear," said her father as he kissed her mother's cheek

Her parent's relationship was something she wanted in her future, maybe with Justin, maybe not. Who knew what could happen? Tony and Pepper compromised but were still happy in their relationship. Most of Mason's friends growing up had divorced parents and she always wondered how her parents held it together. They argued but at the end of the day her mother was the one thing her father couldn't live without and he would do anything in his power to make sure she was happy and safe.


	3. Chapter 3

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of these characters except Mason Stark and her friends.**

**This is my first Iron Man: Tony Stark/Pepper Potts FF but I love reviews and follows! I went back and changed a few things in the first two chapters. Hope you all enjoy. xx Kate**

It had been a couple days later that Mason found herself in her music studio inside her family home in Malibu. She had meetings the first few days she had been in town and she had been eager to get down to business and let her creative juices flow. Being in Malibu meant more business than usual and she didn't particularly like that side of things, just like her father. Business included going into the label and sitting down with other producers to try and figure out which artists to keep around and which to let go. Her duties also included attending some board meetings for Stark Industries that she found highly boring, again just like her father.

She had taken a stack of demo's from the label to go over and sift through before she needed to head back to New York. Listening to demos had been the part of Mason's job that she would never get sick of. Creating music was Mason's favorite part of the industry. She had been writing she was a little girl and it was something she never grew out of. The stack of demos had been a rather large one but she was determined to get through all of them that day. Her parents had been at the office all day, so she would have no disturbances.

Going through each one had been a particularly methodical process for Mason. She categorized alphabetically and then specifically by genre and made sure that she took detailed notes of each individual song on each demo. AIMES (Artificial Intelligence Musical Engineer System) was her robot that she and her father had built together when Mason was 13. She had been so intrigued with JARVIS as a child that she had begged her father for one and the same but they added musical talents and abilities to the machine. It was really quite genius. They had been together for 4 years and Mason found that most days AIMES was her best friend.

"AIMES, I want you to speed that song up by a half a step and I want you to play it back to me," Mason said to the operating system from her seat by her drum set.

"Yes, ma'am," AIMES told her as he started playing the song back to her.

Mason didn't have a tough childhood, except for the fact that she was always switching grades and had been surrounded by older children her whole life. She was smart and she got bored very quickly, so Tony and Pepper kept her stimulated, often times getting her tutors or sitting her in on classes with the "bigger kids." It wasn't until Mason was 11 and starting to attend some of the classes at the high school level that she realized that not everyone appreciated her intelligence. She could match them or most times beat them on the intelligence scale but high school was all about being cool, not about how well you answered the teacher's questions.

When Mason first started "high school," she had wanted to be both, intelligent and cool. However, soon she realized that being cool was just a matter of perspective and why would she want to be cool when she could be everything else? She had everything she needed and never spent enough time with the other kids to really develop lasting relationships until she went to college. College presented a new environment for Mason to be herself but some things didn't change: she didn't want to be friends with everyone in her lectures and the students still didn't appreciate being upstaged by a 14-year old girl either.

"Miss Mason, shall I put the next demo in the player?" her AI asked as she sat comfortably on the couch in the studio.

"Please do, AIMES," Mason said, distractedly.

AIMES started spouting off information about the demo that she wasn't particularly listening to. All Mason had caught were the words Red Wings, which she figured had been the band's name.

She hadn't even seen it coming. Mason hadn't even able to comprehend what had happened until she was lying on the floor of the studio with debris scattered all around her. AIMES was down for the count but JARVIS was still hooked up to the main motherboard and she had asked him what had happened.

"I am not sure Miss Mason. I am looking into the files as we speak. Shall I call your father?" JARVIS asked.

"Yes. My arm is stuck under this boulder thing. Can you help me try and get it off?" She asked JARVIS as she tried to lift the boulder off herself.

"Of course Miss Mason," JARVIS said dialing her father's number and moving towards her to help with the boulder. JARVIS had to retry her father because he hadn't answered.

Both struggled in an attempt to get the debris off but in the end they weren't able to so much as move it. "Hello?" Mason heard her father over the intercom.

"Daddy," she said almost in a whimper. Her arm was starting to really hurt.

Her father could hear in her voice that something was wrong, "Mason, what's wrong?"

"There was some type of an explosion in her music studio, Sir. I haven't been able to figure out the origin as of yet," JARVIS told Tony.

"Explosion?" Mason heard her father say curiously.

"My arm is stuck underneath some of the debris from the ceiling and it's really starting to hurt," Mason told her father.

"Your mother and I will be right home. JARVIS, have you called an ambulance?" Tony questioned the AI.

"Not yet, Sir. I was assuming you would take Miss Mason to the SHIELD medical wing. Her arm is caught but there seems to be no other major damage."

"Daddy, hurry!" Mason was getting uncomfortable and sometimes she broke under pressure.

"We will be there as soon as possible. Hold on, Mason," her father said.

~~~ Tony's POV ~~~

Tony and Pepper were at Stark Industries all day. They had meeting after meeting planned. The only down time they had seen during the day was at lunchtime and they still managed to use that time to talk about their afternoon meetings. They were finally in their last meeting of the day and Tony was extremely bored, almost to the point of dosing off during his wife's presentation.

His phone had started to blare obnoxiously and Tony had immediately received the death stare from his wife indicating he better put it away, so he pressed the decline button without looking to see who called and went back to admiring how his wife looked in her dress that day. However, when his phone went off again he looked down to see who was calling and noticed it to be JARVIS.

"Hello?" Tony said quietly, trying not to disturb Pepper's speech

"Daddy," he heard Mason whimpering on the other end.

"Mason, what's wrong?" He said quickly, hoping nothing to serious had happened to his daughter.

"There was some type of an explosion in her music studio, Sir. I haven't been able to figure out the origin as of yet," JARVIS told Tony through the phone.

"Explosion?" Tony said somewhat loudly.

"My arm is stuck underneath some of the debris from the ceiling and it's really starting to hurt," Tony heard his daughter say in the small voice, indicating that she was scared. Tony had known this voice all too well when it came from his daughter.

"Your mother and I will be right home. JARVIS, have you called an ambulance?" Tony questioned the AI.

Pepper had now caught Tony's attention and sent him a questioning look when he said ambulance, explosions and that they would be right home.

"Not yet, Sir. I was assuming you would take Miss Mason to the SHIELD medical wing. Her arm is caught but there seems to be no other major damage."

"Daddy, hurry!" His daughter sounded so scared, it broke Tony's heart.

"We will be there as soon as possible. Hold on, Mason," Tony said as he hung up the phone.

"Pepper we need to go." Tony went and grabbed her arm, basically dragging her out of the conference room, telling the other people in the room that they would need to post-pone the meeting.

"Tony, what is going on?" Pepper asked as they walked out of the building.

"Something blew in Mason's studio. Her arm is under some debris and JARVIS can't figure out the origin of the explosion," Tony said hurriedly to her as he started the car.

"Step on it!" Pepper yelled at her husband, nervous to see what was waiting for her at the house and worried in what shape they would find their daughter.

When they arrived at the house, the pair immediately ran to their daughter's music studio on the upper floor. Pepper was worried about her daughter. She hadn't heard her on the phone but from how Tony had been reacting this wasn't just a cut or a bruise. She was always the worrier in the family but when it came to their daughter, Tony let nothing slide and took everything seriously. Pepper and Mason's safety and well-being meant everything to Tony.

So when Tony and Pepper heard their daughter screaming as they reached the studio they knew that this wasn't a minor accident.

"Mason!" Tony called out as he ran into the studio, Pepper trailing closely behind him.

"Daddy. My arm. I can't feel my arm," Mason cried out.

"Sir, we tried to move the debris a few times but it wouldn't budge. Also, with the amount of blood, I would speculate that this isn't a minor injury," JARVIS told Tony.

"Fury has the medical wing all set for our arrival. Now we just need to get you out from under there, Masie," Tony told his daughter, hoping to calm her down.

Pepper quickly knelt beside her daughter in an attempt to calm her down, brushing her hair out of her face and holding her hand.

"Mom," Mason said as she looked at her mother.

"Hi sweetheart. You're going to be okay, I promise. Daddy is going to get you out of here," Pepper said reassuringly to Mason, unsure if she was saying it to convince herself or her daughter.

This moment made Pepper think about all the times Tony scared her half to death. She thought that since she had a child, she wouldn't need to be worried about unexpected explosions anymore. Apparently, Pepper had been wrong.

Tony was working with JARVIS to get the debris off of Mason's arm but it was proving to be difficult.

"Pep, you are going to need to get in there with something to stop the bleeding once we get this off her. I won't be able to get to it right away," Tony told his wife. "Grab the towel over on the counter and get ready to put pressure on the wound."

"Tony is this safe? Shouldn't we call an ambulance? Have the experts doing this?" Pepper questioned her husband.

"She doesn't have that kind of time. We can do this, Pep. Get ready. 1, 2, 3, lift JARVIS," Tony strained as he lifted the rock. As they lifted the rock off his daughter's arm, Pepper swooped in and put pressure on the wound but that only made Mason scream louder than before.

"Tony we need to get her to medical immediately," Pepper said as she tied the towel tightly around her daughter's forearm.

"I'll carry her, you drive," Tony told his wife as he scooped up Mason and started towards the car.

Everyone thought Tony was the crazy driver in the family, which was true on most occasions, but Pepper went way beyond the legal speed limit in this case, wanting to get her daughter to the doctors as soon as possible.

Tony sat in the backseat with his daughter, cradling her upper body like he had when she was a baby. She was whimpering and seemed to be losing a lot of blood which was scaring Tony.

"Daddy, I'm going to rest my eyes," Mason told her father. She was tired. She knew it was the blood loss but she was just so tired.

"No, Masie. You need to stay awake, just until we get to medical, then you can sleep all you want. I just need you to hold on for a little longer," Tony begged his daughter. "Can you go any faster, Pep?"

"I'm trying, Tony. Traffic is horrendous. We are five minutes out," Pepper said rushed and irritably.

"Let's just hurry," Tony said.

"What's going to happen to my arm, Daddy?" Mason asked.

Tony didn't know what to say to her. At this point, as long as she was safe, he didn't really care what the medics needed to do but without her arm Mason could be in a whole other realm of pain.

"I don't know, Masie, but let's not think about that right now, all right?" Tony told his daughter.

"Okay," Mason breathed out as they drove up to the building, hearing her mother say, 'we're here.'

Tony grabbed his daughter and ran inside quickly, Fury already waiting for them in the lobby with a gurney.

"What happened, Stark?" Fury asked Tony.

"We're not sure. JARVIS is running some codes to see what happened but all we know right now is that there was an unexplained explosion in Mason's studio. She had some debris land on her arm. Pepper stopped the bleeding as best she could but she's lost a lot of blood," Tony rattled off as they ran with the gurney towards the medical station, a medic team greeting them immediately and taking his daughter.

"I want to go with her," Pepper stated quickly as they rolled the gurney out of site.

"Mrs. Stark, let the doctors do their work. They will keep you updated as often as possible," Fury said to Pepper. "Tony, the team and I will go back to the house and see what we can find."

All Tony and Pepper could do now was wait and patience was not the pair's strong suit when it came to their daughter.


	4. Chapter 4

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of these characters except Mason Stark and her friends.**

**This is my first Iron Man: Tony Stark/Pepper Potts FF but I love reviews and follows! This is just the beginning. It gets better, I swear. Hope you enjoy. xx Kate**

After what seemed like forever, a doctor came out and called for a 'Mr. Stark.'

"That's me," Tony said urgently as he and Pepper zoomed over towards the doctor. A million questions were flying out of the pair's mouths. How was their daughter? Was she awake? When could they see her? The finally asked them to take a seat.

"I am Doctor Copeland, nice to meet the both of you. Mason is doing well and they are closing her up as we speak."

"Surgery?" Pepper questioned.

"The bone in her left forearm needed to be reset, so our amazing orthopedic surgeon went in and she should be out of the cast in 6-8 weeks.

"Cast? 6-8 weeks?" Tony asked.

"Unfortunately, it wasn't the cleanest of breaks, so it will need a bit longer to heal. As for the cast, just a standard fiberglass top, nothing special."

Tony and Pepper looked at each other and let out a long sigh of relief, both knowing that their daughter was going to be fine.

"What about the blood loss?"

"We were able to do infusions and she took to it well. We want to keep her here until Thursday just to keep an eye on her but she should be up and moving around again with no problem," Dr. Copeland said before he told the pair he must be off and someone would be back to get them when Mason was in recovery.

A little later another doctor came out and told Pepper and Tony that Mason was awake in recovery and that they could see her. When they got to their daughter's room they immediately hugged her and kissed her. She looked absolutely thrilled to see them.

After a little while of chatting about how she was feeling and what the doctor had said, Mason asked if they had found out what had happened.

"Not yet sweetheart but Fury is at the house as we speak with a team looking into it. Don't worry, we'll take care of it," Tony said as he patted his daughter's leg.

"Are you able to stay with me tonight, Mom?" Mason asked.

"Of course. Daddy is going to run home and see how Fury is doing but he'll come back later with a change of clothes for the both of us," Pepper told her daughter.

"She's right. I'll be back before you go to sleep," Tony said as he got up and kissed his daughter's forehead for the millionth time that day. Pepper just pointed to the hallway, letting her daughter know that she was going to talk to her father.

"She will want a pair of leggings and a t-shirt, any one you can find in her closet will be good. Bring me some lounge clothes as well," Pepper started saying, listing off the things Tony needed to bring back with him.

"Slow down, Pep," Tony told his wife. "We can grab that stuff tomorrow. Right now the essentials. I'll be back around 10. I just want to check in on the team and figure out what they know so far. I won't be long."

Pepper just nodded at him. "I'm going to go back in there. See you later."

"Have you found anything?" Tony asked Fury when he got to the house. He was hoping that he wouldn't need to look into the explosion himself.

"Not much. We're getting some people in here to clear out the debris," Fury told Tony as he looked around. The studio was a mess. Stone was everywhere and most everything would need to be replaced. He wasn't worried about that because all that mattered was that Mason was safe but it still made his stomach uneasy not knowing what happened.

"As long as it's all cleaned up by the time we need to bring her home on Thursday."

"I'll make sure of it. How's your girl doing by the way?"

Tony looked at the ground and shuffled his feet. "Wants to know what happened, but better than expected, I guess. Only a broken arm."

"Lucky girl," Fury said.

Tony just looked straight ahead. He couldn't stop thinking about finding Mason on the floor in this room just hours earlier scared to death. Tony breathed out and muttered, "When I she called me, God, I haven't heard that voice since she was afraid of the dark."

"We will figure out what happened here. Don't worry," Fury said reassuringly, as he patted Tony on the back. "Go back to the hospital. Be with your family."

"Yeah. I just stopped by to pick up some clothes for the girls." Tony turned around and left the room, not being able to stand the look of it anymore.

It was finally Thursday and Pepper and Tony were able to bring their daughter home. It was a typical broken arm and the doctors only wanted to keep Mason there for a day of observation because of the blood transfusions. However, a day and a half in the hospital was long enough for the 17-year old.

When they returned home that afternoon, the music studio had been cleared out and was empty, just like Fury said it would be, except for the piece of the instruments she'd had up there. They looked so sad and broken. Her instruments were her lifelines, what kept her going most days. Fortunately, Mason's prized possessions, her first set of drums and her guitar, wittingly named Virginia, were safely in her studio in New York.

"Sweetheart, why don't you go lie down and I'll bring you some lunch," Pepper said to Mason as she saw the sad look on her daughter's face as they stood in the studio.

"Okay," Mason muttered as she dragged herself out the door and to her room. Seeing the studio made her sad. It also scared her. She wasn't one to get easily spooked but Mason also didn't think this was a freak accident.

SHIELD hadn't found much except that it was electrically based. Her father was trying to see where it originated from but even he was coming up short. It wasn't very reassuring that the best weren't able to find much but it sparked something in Mason. She was like her father and always wanted to get to the bottom of things and if someone were after her or her family, she'd damn well stop them.


	5. Chapter 5

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of these characters except Mason Stark and her friends.**

**This is my first Iron Man: Tony Stark/Pepper Potts FF but I love reviews and follows, they keep me motivated to post the chapters! Hope you are all enjoying the story! xx**

That night Mason couldn't sleep. She had a million things running through her head and tossing and turning in her bed wasn't particularly helping. She decided to go to her favorite spot of the house: the balcony overlooking the water. When she had problems, she always liked to look out into the night sky and think, it cleared her head and that was exactly what she needed at the moment.

As Mason sat there she thought about the explosion and what had been happening right before. She had been distracted by the time that demo had been put in. She was off in her own little la-la-land thinking about God knows what. She had gone back and gotten a list from AIMES after fixing the AI; the prior demo names and all the information the AI could give her about the demo that was played directly before the explosion wasn't much, nothing really seemed to stick out to her or AIMES. However, the last demo was by a band named Red Wings and she had AIMES and JARVIS do some background on the band but nothing came up, nothing made sense about why they would be after her or her family.

~~~~Inside the house~~~~

Tony couldn't sleep. He tried to close his eyes but every time he had he ended up imagining the explosion in his daughter's music studio and it made him physically cringe. He and SHIELD were looking into what had happened. He also knew that his daughter hadn't been sitting idle either and had been looking for information herself.

He looked over at Pepper who was sound asleep and decided that he was going to check in on Mason in her room and watch his daughter sleep. That would give him piece of mind.

In a low whisper, Tony asked JARVIS to pull up the feed for Mason's room.

"I am sorry sir, but you will not find Miss Mason in her room. She is currently on the balcony overlooking the water," the AI told him.

"Back to sleep JARVIS," Tony whispered to the AI. He was going to go join his daughter. He didn't like the idea that this was keeping her up at night, worrying her young mind.

He walked out of the bedroom and padded towards the balcony doors. He opened the balcony doors and slipped out, his daughter so focused on the sky, she didn't even notice he had joined her until he took a seat next to her on the ground, feet dangling over the edge.

"Couldn't sleep?" Tony asked his daughter.

While she had been staring up at the stars, Mason hadn't noticed her father sit down beside her. It was his question, asking if she couldn't sleep that made her jump out of her skin.

"Holy shit, Dad," Mason said as she held her pounding heart.

"Mason Grace, watch the language please. I didn't mean to startle you," Tony told his daughter as he patted her leg.

"Give a daughter a heads up next time, would ya."

The two sat there for a while in silence, their feet dangling off the edge, not really knowing what to say to the other. Mason didn't want to worry her dad by telling him that she couldn't sleep but he must have already known that if he was sitting next to her on the balcony. Also, she felt bad that he couldn't sleep either as a result of what had happened.

Her father was the one to break the silence, "Your mother is sleeping like a log. I think you wore her out."

"I think most of the time it's you, so I'll take the blame this once," Mason said jokingly to her father.

"I'll agree to that. Now, what's on your mind and why aren't you fast asleep in your bed?" He asked his daughter. He wanted to know what she was thinking because he didn't like the fact that she was losing sleep over this like he was.

"I keep replaying the moments before the explosion over and over in my head and I can't find anything that seems out of place. I know I was distracted. It was the last demo in a stack of, like, 12 and I wasn't really paying attention. AIMES asked if I wanted her to put in the next demo, I said 'yes' and the next thing I knew I was flying backwards, getting my left arm crushed by a boulder," Mason said, holding her left arm that was covered by a lilac color cast, staring straight ahead with that look in her eye that she got from Tony. It was the "I'm lost" face.

"SHIELD and I are looking into it. You shouldn't worry about any of it," Tony told Mason.

"I can't help it. It was either a direct hit at me or an indirect hit at you and if it's the latter, Mom could be next," Mason told her dad.

Tony knew his daughter was right. He and SHIELD had been thinking the same thing and Tony didn't like the sound of either option.

"We know." That was all Tony could say to Mason. He was worried too.

"But this is what I have figured out, a band named Red Wings made that demo. I had AIMES and JARVIS look for anything related to the band but nothing suspicious came up. Has SHIELD found anything in the debris?" Mason asked.

"Not yet. They are doing some testing back at the lab and they should know in the morning."

"Well, I went back and thought to myself, 'I brought it into the house.' It didn't breach security, so it mustn't have had like a detonator on it or anything. It was programmed," Mason said.

These were the moments that made Tony excited but also scared him all at the same time. Mason was smart, genius smart and she wanted to get to the bottom of things just like he had in his day and that made him extremely proud but it also made him excessively nervous and protective of her, thinking that she would be digging and sticking her nose in unwanted places, leaving her in a load of trouble that he had loads of experience with.

"Programmed?" Tony asked, wanting her to elaborate and tell him more.

"Yes, programmed, but it needed some sort of electric conductor, something to tell it to detonate, the CD player. AIMES had gotten approximately a minute of the song before the explosion happened, so it must have been programmed to detonate after being spun around a certain number of times."

"So the program was probably put on a 460 RPM disc," Tony told his daughter.

"Exactly, a regular run of the mill disc. I'm not sure what it all leads to but that's what I know."

"It's better than nothing, Masie. Are you ready to get back to bed though? It's 3 am," Tony said to his daughter as he rubbed her back.

Before they made a move to go inside Mason said, "I'm not scared, you know. I'm nervous. We've gotten threats before but this seems different, right?"

Tony looked at his daughter, staring straight into those beautiful blue eyes he fell in love with the minute he saw them. "I want you to be a little nervous, okay? A little extra precaution won't hurt us. As for previous threats, I handled those, didn't I?"

"Yes."

"Okay then, get up and I'll tuck you in like old times," Tony said as he helped his daughter up and opened the door leading into the house.

He would make sure his daughter was safe and sound in bed before returning to his sleeping wife. But when they got to Mason's room, she looked up at Tony from her bed and asked if he would lay with her until she fell asleep and he rarely could deny his daughter anything.

Tony leaning against his daughter's headboard and Mason cuddling her Dad like a teddy bear was how Pepper found her husband and daughter later that morning.


End file.
